Student interest in politics soaring in Lehigh Valley area

They're too young to vote, but youths are trying to sway opinions.

April 18, 2008|By Genevieve Marshall Of The Morning Call

Meghan Fluck makes her pitches in the car when her mother is driving her to play rehearsal, or at the dinner table when her parents ask about her volunteer work at Barack Obama's Bethlehem campaign headquarters.

Although the Liberty High School senior's parents are Republicans, that hasn't stopped Fluck from trying to get them to vote for a Democrat, if Obama wins the party's nomination.

Fluck has been immersed in politics her entire life. As a little girl, she spent many election nights toddling around the polling place because her parents, Carl and Wanda, were Election Board officials.

But at 18, her ideas about politics are her own.

"I've always had certain views, and Obama agrees with the things I stand for," she said. "He wants to bring back the American dream of equality. He wants to end the war in Iraq."

Fluck is part of a generation of young people compelled to volunteer for presidential campaigns before their 18th birthdays, form political clubs in high school and work at polling stations. And although they're too young to vote, some are trying to influence their parents' and older siblings' decisions in the voting booth.

"They are the ones bringing up the campaign at the dinner table," said Marc Morgenstern, executive director of Declare Yourself On a cool spring evening in March -- a school night, no less -- Fluck was one of 60 student volunteers who turned out at an Obama campaign meeting at the Illinois senator's Bethlehem headquarters. Lehigh Valley high school students represented two-thirds of the attendees. (The remainder were college students.)

Raaj Parekh, a junior at Parkland High School, was in the crowd, waiting with his arms crossed while a campaign worker explained the registration process -- information he personally won't be able to use for another year because he turns 18 after the November election.

"The fact that I can't vote in the presidential election is even more of a reason to get involved," Parekh said. "If I can get other people to vote for him, that's my impact."

Traditionally, young voters -- those ages 18 to 24 -- have registered and cast ballots at the lowest percentages of any age group. In the last presidential election, only half of them registered and 41 percent voted, according to U.S. Census data. Of 65- to 74-year-olds, more than 75 percent registered and 71 percent voted.

"That gap is narrowing," said Morgenstern. "Our polls and surveys show that young people feel they have a stake in this election and they want to have a voice. It's a matter of pride."

Parkland High School senior Jeff Moyer is working on his liberal parents to persuade them to vote for the person he thinks will best lead this country: another Republican.

Moyer, 18, said he thinks his mother, a registered Democrat, might actually vote for John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the general presidential election. He's not as sure he can sway his father, a registered independent, away from Ralph Nader.

"We have pretty good discussions at home," said Moyer, of North Whitehall Township. "I give them an alternate view."

Some young voters such as Katey Dauble, a senior at Allen High School in Allentown, will vote the same way as their parents. Dauble, 18, is supporting Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Clinton at the urging of her mother, Cindy, an employee in the mailroom at The Morning Call.

"It was a hard decision, considering that it's my first time voting," said Katey Dauble. "It helped to hear her opinions."

In his social studies classroom at Liberty, Anthony Markovich said it's rare to hear a student talk about a parent's opinion. In fact, "they tend to go the opposite way."

"Meghan has been influencing me quite a bit," said Wanda Fluck, a supervisor at Synchronoss Technologies in Bethlehem. "She has certainly swayed me in [Obama's] direction."

Although Carl Fluck still plans to vote for McCain in November, he respects and admires his daughter for making up her own mind.

"I want her to go out there and try it and find out what it's like to really support a candidate," said Fluck, who consults with attorneys on federal legislation . "Other than that, I can't tell her what to think. She wouldn't have it even if I tried."

Not since the Vietnam War era have young people taken such a strong interest in politics. After a 30-year decline in participation, the 2004 presidential election saw a dramatic increase in the number of voters ages 18 to 29.

The youth vote already has proved influential in the primaries and caucuses of some states where registration among young voters has tripled or even quadrupled .

In the last presidential election, 547,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 registered to vote in Pennsylvania, according to Declare Yourself.

As of last week, more than three-quarters of a million people in that age group were registered in the state -- an increase of about 50 percent, with seven months to go until Election Day, Morgenstern said.